2006-01-30

In 2001 (5 years ago) Alberta's population was 2,962,664. 2.3 million cheques have been going out. What gives?

After all, one of my complaints about this money is that it is going to too many people, and there isn't enough money. I don't have time to crunch the numbers today, but imagine what the payoff would be if the money only went to people who paid income tax. Imagine if it was only to people who had lived in Alberta at least since 2001 (ideally I would say resided in Alberta since December 1999). Imagine too if it was simply an income tax deduction and avoiding all these bank cash shortages and petty purchases. Imagine finally if the full value of the surplus if all $8.7 billion in surplus, rather than merely $1.4 billion (or even say $6 billion with the rest going to road building or something) was used.

Instead, 7 year old girls, 2003 Pakistani immigrants, and people who collect welfare or pay no income tax are getting awash with the same $400 I get, a strong Albertan (and Alberta Separatist no less) who's lived here my entire life and loses 40% of his measly wage to Paul Martin's tax hikes. It's bull. Somebody please run the numbers for me....

This means that Oilers games are going to be roughly harder to get seats for than Hilary Duff concerts. And they'll occur about as often. Buddy responds to this post: the way the oil have played lately I am not sure what would be better

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Speaking of Hilary Duff in Edmonton, she got special permission to go to "The Bank" even though she's only 18 and the Bank won't let in club-goers under 21 (some nights 23 or 25, apparently). The Bank also has a "strict dress code". Apparently people think we need to emulate Los Angeles's posh club scene. Goddammit that makes me angry that just because I'm in runner and jeans I'm not "permitted" into so many of these new chauchy clubs.

Lorne Gunter sees there is no rural-urban divide and muses about Bush's call congradulating Harper. Would the national media be happier if Bush had called to bitch Harper out over getting the job? Well, actually, they would. (However much the idea makes me feel ill, it would be funny to see if Layton would accept the phone call).

Kate at Small Dead Animals talks about Stockwell Day's chances as Foreign Affairs Minister and notes amoung other things his endorsement by numerous foreign governments, the "Bruno sex scandal" occuring on the previous minister's watch, and a Stockwell Day effect on human rights in third world dictatorships.

From Adam Radwanski's blog: "There's a perception out there that Canadians have turned from the Liberals to the Conservatives. That's flat-out wrong. Even with 36.25%, the Tories still came out more than 2% below the combined Canadian Alliance and PC share of the popular vote in 2000." Remind me again why we disbanded the Reform Party?

Finally, Warren Kinsella seems to be retiring. I hereby take back all the bad things I've ever said about Paul Martin. You did good, Pauly.

New Scientist has reported that University of Waterloo physicists have released a gravitational variant that doesn't require dark matter (or at least as much of it) and explains a few weird effects that otherwise aren't well explained. The other advantage of the theory is its resurrectance of the graviton, which if it exists would create a whole new (valid) field of mathematics in dealing with spin-2 particles (the few articles that exist read more like apologies). It would also vastly reduce the requirement for Dark Matter, which despite the fears of some I would gladly welcome. I did a project on dark matter back in my undergrad physics days, and kept running into the great two hurdles of dark matter:

Firstly, its relatively rare, making up maybe some 10% of the matter out there. Problem is that the theory calls on 23% dark matter, or worse: 85-90%. There just isn't that much out there. WIMPS have to take up way too much of the slack, and the best WIMP candidate out there is the neutrino, which may end up having zero rest mass anyways. If the neutrino does have mass, then we have more neutrino flavours to come up with since the detection of neutrinos so far has come up short of the required total. If that's not enough, the MACHOs have the massive requirements for dark matter, but there just aren't enough of them out there, unless we're missing out on lots of them [which isn't that unreasonable, seeing how they are dark! -ed]. But we can't be missing lots of them, because there are only so many baryons available to be missing out on, and we aren't really missing out on them. So between the two possibilities (and we can't think of a third candidate between things small and almost massless and numerous and things large-ish and massive and light absorbing) dark matter just doesn't seem to be around as much. The dark energy theory was brought in to fill some of the gaps, which brings us to...

The second problem with dark matter is that its coming across far too much as a "fudge factor". You have to start bringing in negative pressure [of course, they once scoffed at negative mass -ed] and even poetic notions such as "cost of (free) space" simply don't carry a whole lot of weight. The dark matter problem is almost a bit of scientific desperation, trying to explain away holes in logic with dark matter plugins. While I don't doubt there is dark matter out there (here's a real-life MACHO and here are real-life WIMPS) there just isn't that much of it, and not a heck of a lot of dark energy either.

So the Scalar-Tensor-Vector Gravity development might seem pretty exciting. (Stupid name though. Basically its called "1-n-3 dimension gravity" or worse, "1-n^2-n dimension graviity") It does already have its share of detractors, and the hard questions still haven't been asked. Of course, its a good time to mention that as a B.Sc. Physics holder myself, I'm available to anybody who's hiring people to help ask and/or answer these questions!

The Journal today is reporting that Edmonton Police are looking into swastikas and "ZOG" (Zionist Occupation Group) spray painted on local churches. This is all well and good, but Rahim Jaffer's signs on Whyte Avenue were spray painted with the letters "NDP" in the dying days of the election, and nothing seems to be being done about that.

And I really don't think we have much to fear from Nazis in this country. Meanwhile, the NDP (who support no shortage of Nazi Party practises and definitely no shortage of Nazi Party goals) got an increase in the popular vote total and the number of seats! This horrific political movement gets a free pass in the hate crimes arena, and I for one think that such a time is over.

At least one letter writer is taking Toronto Mayor David Miller to task for his pre-election sniping against Harper and his post-election demands on Harper. I mean seriously, if the "man on the street" interviews CTV was giving yesterday are any indiciation, these people won't back Harper no matter what he does for Toronto just because he might end the gun registry or bugger marriage or baby-murdering-on-demand or any other pet liberal causes. Here's a free memo to Harper: these people won't vote for you under any circumstances, so don't sacrifice promises made to the people who did. This is not complicated strategy here, and if it is phrased as such, even if it sounds heartless, it will at the very least be understood. Harper will be supporting, go figure, conservative policies at the expense of liberal policies, and Torontonians might be well to examine how many of their neighbours oppose fruitcake marriage or the like.

Canada's arts community has already begun presenting me with its laundry list of pet demands, apparently forgetting their recent history. This is the inbred group of self-important "arts" peddlars who claim to be "speaking for the country" yet not a one of them was speaking for the 5 million Canadians who voted for our era of optimistic change in Canada, our return to the country that is respected and admired in the world for more than just a couple of homosexual weddings and cozying up to the likes of Fidel Castro and Alec Baldwin. If Canada's creative minds are unable to diversify themselves to reflect the full spectrum of beliefs in this country than I do not see any reason that a Conservative government whom these people campaigned so vigorously against should now succumb to their demands just in time for another election where we will be campaigned against. When we start seeing popular musicians in this country supporting a fair flat tax structure or singing about the inherent waste of government in their song, or watch Canadian playwrights bring to the theatre a play who's message is the strength and the beauty present in the traditional family, or take the family to see a Canadian filmmaker's bold portrayal of a world where gun ownership is universal and legal not to the detriment of society but to its peacefulness and flourish, perhaps when we see some of these things our administration can take seriously the increased funding requests by the arts lobbyists. I do not however see today a request by a constituency that wants to fund art, I see a constituency that wants to fund political campaigning both within elections and between them. Our neighbours to the south are in the midst of a great debate about the meaning of "fair and balanced" in both the news and entertainment media, but here in Canada it is not even a question. These calls for funding are simply to increase the clout of the NDP and Liberal parties in popular culture, and unless I see evidence of a change, we will be taking all action we can to insure that only an entertainment industry that reflects the right and the left wings present in our culture shall be deemed deserving of financial support of the right and left wings present in the taxpayer.

So what are the odds we'll hear this argument? From any quarter? Not likely, I assure you.

2006-01-24

I've made a few sizing changes, which means I have to come up with my own graphic images. Since I can't think of a way to put these on blogger.com without just doing a posting featuring them, i'll do that and save me the effort. This post can be safely ignored.

Update: It works! It works! It's alive! It's alive! Okay, the main thing now is that I have a lot more text space here to play with, and still should work on any monitor viewing this website after November 2002. (This is not as easy a thing to say as you might think)

I can't speak much for many of these points: though as a Western Canadian I'm specially positionedto be a minor experton Ukrainian culture. I do have a relatively powerful "in" into such insights, which I am most certainly not at liberty to discuss at this point. However, we'll leave that aside for something else I'm not particularly equipped to discuss but do have a small amount of outrage for it:A poster claimed that the Ukrainian holocaust was a "natural disaster". Slashdot listed it as [-1, Flamebait] but I believe the post was actually in earnest: one of the many communist sympathizers and apologeticists who believe the Soviet Union suffered from 70 years of bad weather. This is, of course, pure bunk: the first followup post took care of that misconception. But the misconception is greater than a "mere" ten million Ukrainian corpses lying buried in unmarked mass graves, for it threatens all of us: the insane belief that allying oneself to the U.S. is an evil for altering your culture, while allying oneself to other nations to alter your culture (*cough cough* Jamaica *cough cough*) is a noble deed for the global village. It's not only a Ukrainian problem -- Fraud Barlow covered this topic in her first post-2006-vote Macleans blog. Leftists don't merely not learn their lesson...they ignore the lesson, place every circumstance in a moral isolation chamber, and refuse to place any connection between applicable comparisons while at the same time making wildly inaccurate connections between inapplicable comparisons.

It will take a lot more than the deaths of a few million Ukrainians or Taiwanese or New Yorkers to smarten these people up. Left-wingers like to paint themselves as grand intellectuals, but its only to cover up their total lack of an intellect.

So Harper scored a "big win" last night, which I suppose on November 28th I would have agreed with. However, the election wasn't on November 28th, and the early-January swell of Conservative support leaves this result a little empty. There are some pros and cons I would like to discuss:

Pros:

My night of avoiding the election entirely went extremely well. My ex-girlfriend's fiancee works for a slightly scuzzy financial outfit that I shouldn't speak too ill of seeing how I might just end up either being a customer and/or an employee of them. Not too likely though. Damn these get-rich-quick (or at all) schemes.

The Conservatives have swept Alberta. Ann McLellan is gone. Rahim Jaffer (take that, anonymous poster from 5 days ago!) is still firmly in place. The Liberals and their ilk can no longer claim to be a "national party". If the Conservatives can be faulted for not being present in PEI then the Liberals should be acknowledged as the party that nobody in Alberta is willing to tolerate.

Ed Schreyer and Svend Robinson both lost. The pedophile and the guy-too-creeped-out-by-pedophiles-for-the-dippers both lose out on the same night.

Actually, that's pretty much the only good news. Now onto the....

Cons:

Belinda Stronach, Michael Ignatiff (how can he be Prime Minister when his name is so freaking hard to spell? The actual spelling is "Ignatieff"!), Fudge-packing Scott Brison, Hedy Fry (I don't subscribe to the Gunter school that a Fry win is preferable to a Robinson win, but rather that both of them should have been killed in some mid-campaign plane crash -- hey, I never said I was going to say nice things here), Ralph Goodale, and Olivia Chow all re-won their seats. That's depressing.

Peter McKay won too, so now he'll want a cabinet post or another "Conservative split" will occur. Hey, Peter, Stephen won big out west and in Ontario and especially in Quebec. You only had to deliver a bunch of dole-supported fishermen, and you blew it.

The Edmonton Journal did a bad typesetting job on the front page today. I go to the front door, grab the paper without looking at it, bring it in, lay it open face up on my bed, close my eyes, lie down so my face is right there, open my eyes, and see this headline: HARPER HUMBLES GRITS. So naturally, of course, I'm thinking a huge win. It takes a good 30 seconds of searching to find the seat totals above the headline. So then I see 124 Conservative seats, rather than say 158 or some such thing, and its automatically a disappointment.

Paul Martin is stepping down as Liberal leader. That's a shame. I was hoping he would develop a case of John Kerry syndrome. Instead he's going to become Al Gore. Except instead of leaving to bum around the house writing books about global warming, he'll end up back in charge of a steamship company with billion-dollar assets.

The Oilers lost to the Flames in the Battle of Alberta last night too. And Mario Lemieux announces his retirement. Hey Mario, get a sense of timing!

Ezra Levant last night apparently bragged to the east about how Alberta seperatism has been stopped with a Harper win. Only he didn't win. And I'll guarantee you that next election he'll lose. Ignatieff will run his own flawless campaign, the media jackals will turn on Harper, and we'll be back where we started. Watered down proposals, promising to back off on all the legislation that needs to be passed, forgoing important democratic and economic reforms, and for what? For 16 months in a cushy house with a shitty lawn in a god-forsaken useless city on the banks of a dirty river. No thanks, just give me my own country.

The NDP made big gains in B.C. and Manitoba. Why did we disband the Reform Party again?

Toronta and Mount Royal duck the big blue wave. This is bad, really really bad, and yet I'm not entirely sure why. But mark my words, some political hay will be made by Harper's failure to make a dent in Canada's two most pretentious cities.

My hockey pool team: "LiberalsAlwaysGetIn" fell from 9th place (out of 11) to 10th place with a 1/2 point loss and a +2 gain from the guy below me. The good run I had with that team name is evaporated now (I was 11/11 when I changed it). So now I have a more accurate name: "TheLiberalsGotIn". I'm sure that's going to confuse more than a few people.

"Alberta would be a better place if Todd Babiak was premier and Ralph Klein, you know, wasn't." said a venter in today's Journal. Goddammit, the federal election is barely over and now you socialist idiots are trying to ruin provincial politics too??

So there you have it, my election rundown. And now I leave you with a couple of jokes.

Paul Martin, Jack Layton, and Stephen Harper are all riding on a plane, when Martin notes "you know, I could throw a $1000 bill out of the window and make one person very happy." Harper retorts "well I could throw ten $100 bills out of the window and make 10 people really happy." Layton chimes in "if I threw 100 $10 bills out the window I'd make 100 people pretty happy." The pilot comes on over the intercom and says "you ignorant pricks, I could throw all three of you out the window and make 32 million people happy."

"Elections are too important to leave them in the hands of Newfies who see a ballot and think they get to play a game of 'Connect the Dots'." My friend J____ takes credit for that one.

2006-01-23

A Welsh mathematician has discovered that January 23rd, 2006 is the most depressing day of the year. You factor in the Weather, your damned poor salary, your overwhelming Debt, its not Too long after Christmas, the fact that you haven't Quit smoking or having unprotected sex or skydiving or lying or any of the resolutions you made December 31st, you aren't really Motivated to do anything, and you need to do something, anything, but instead of taking action you're instead succumbing to the temptation of iNAction. The actual date is supposed to be January 24th, but that was last year when you didn't have to do a mid-week correction: Monday is the worst day of the week, you see.Most of the newspapers around here are busy giggling that our Governor General, on advice from Paul Martin, chose this date for our federal election (oh, is there an election on?) As a brilliant scientist myself, I think the more important consequence of this formula is the fact that there aren't a lot of Welsh mathematicians...

So after listening to Sarah Slean's CD 4 times in a row yesterday (the hazards of giving people music for Christmas is they might just want to play the music for you), its only fair that today I discover she has a blog on the MacLeans.ca site. Fortunately, she has decided not to give us her "musicians" take on the vote. (Why is it that with the notable exceptions -- Lars Ulrich, Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper, Rush, Dr. Dre, and Oingo Boingo come to mind -- the musical world is so far left they make Naomi Klein blush? There'll probably be a pretty substantial rant about this one day. I wonder if people are keeping a list of "rants I'm supposed to make but haven't yet" promises? Maybe I should start one on the sidebar. Pro-active, and all that.)

Another mini-rant motivated by the anonymous first comment to this post. (I say "anonymous first comment" in the hopes that someday there are more comments than the 1 so far.. which is probably the 3rd comment ever) "There is way more than 800 same sex couples in a city of 1 million" he claims. Well, the Journal article quoted relies on, you know, the actual statistics rather than just a wild guess. How does one suspect there are "way more than 800"? There really aren't that many fudgepackers in this city (too many, perhaps, but that's a given). If I didn't have to know anybody from the University of Alberta Faculty of Arts I probably wouldn't personally know more than 5, and 4 of them I could stop knowing by simply going back in time and finding myself a better minimum wage job. The other one was LUG anyways, based on the fact that she's quite pregnant and happy at this point in her life. Anyways, the first thing the fairie-defenders try to say when you find some actual statistics is that its underrepresented. Usually some BS argument about "living in fear" comes up. (If you want to "live in fear" in Canada in 2006 you'll lie on forms about your dislike of pillow biters, not about your lifestyle as one). So why can't everybody else start pulling this stunt. For example, polls of Alberta Separatism range from about 18% to about 38%, but I think that these people are just scared to admit to pollsters what they really feel: straw polls done by people I know in the Edmonton region find in the under-30 crowd a 70%+ support level. So there you go. A majority of Albertans want to separate. They just are afraid to say so... in case the person doing the survey is a cocksucker...

2006-01-22

Global TV is messing up the program schedule, and My Name is Earl is on instead of Family Guy which sort of bites. So I was doing some channel flipping, and A-Channel has Matchstick Men on, so the question must be asked:Is it wrong to watch the movie and think Alison Lohman is hot? I mean, there is some justificationfor it. And she's obviously a little older than 14 in the movie, right? (I admit the character is 14) All I know is that when I first saw the film I was checking her out and I had no idea how old the actress was. And the movie was introduced to me by a friend who has a child and said I need to watch it to understand the mechanism by which a parent falls in love with their offspring.

Tomorrow I shall not be blogging at all, or watching TV, or reading much of anything. I will enter a state of hyperbaric isolation far away from anything which might give me unpleasant election results. For now, however, would be electors can enjoy some mild reading:

Somebody today said that the Conservatives weren't "for the people". This can't help but be a good thing though: everything in history that has been done "for the people" turns out to be "against the people". The Red October revolution was "for the people", Stalin's night of long knives was "for the people", Mao's revolution was "for the people", the unification of Viet Nam was "for the people", public healthcare was "for the people" and so on and so forth.

Does nobody care that we're encouraging stupid people highly likely to vote against Harper to cast their ballots? Or that APIRG and Students Against Global Apathy are aware of this tendency and not being up front about it? Young stupid people shouldn't vote (nor should old stupid people, but they aren't getting the media blitz).

On a similar topic, since every vote for a party nets them $1.75, shouldn't people stop saying "everybody should vote or you can't complain". What if all the parties proposed lowering the voting age to 16, and I personally opposed this? Now not only do I have to vote for one of these parties but also give them money to be further re-elected when I don't like their policies?? What the hell is with that?

For the first half of the election, the Edmonton Journal has been trying to argue (mostly daily) that "Edmontonians should elect Ann McLellan to have 'our voice' in government" and "it would be a shame" to lose our valuable cabinet minister. Now that its looking like a 1/20 chance that the Liberals will even be government, the Journal has decided....Ann should be elected because its good to have one Liberal MP after all, or because we should have a role in the opposition benches. Why not just be all up front guys? Tell us Edmontonians that you want McLellan elected because you can't bear to live in a city swept by the Conservative machine.

Keith Dannacker in Saturday's Journal was upset by Laurie Hawn's mailout saying "if you were a friend to the Liberals, this envelope would be full of cash" (ha ha). Keith argued that "I happen to have a sign on my lawn supporting Ann McLellan, so I must be a friend of the Liberals" and then got pissy that his envelope contained no cash: "Did somebody steal the money you promised me, Mr. Official Agent?" Not only is it funny watching a LIBERAL SUPPORTER complain to a Conservative about graft, but its a little odd nobody has yet written back to tell Keith he's just not a good enough Liberal friend.

As an aside, last Saturday's Journal had an opinion piece by King's College prof John Heimstra. I can't find the hilariously paranormal article online, but its a summary of this PDF document

"There are more than 800 same sex couples in Edmonton" sniffs another Edmonton Journal new article by Karen Kleiss. [803, perhaps? -ed] "Most of whom live in the core ridings of Edmonton-Strathcona, Edmonton East, and most of all in Edmonton Centre." The rest of the article moves on to predicting the poofters will take down Laurie Hawn, while never bothering to note...if people are "born gay" why do they live so predominantly in a couple of ridings?

I had to miss Paul Martin's Edmonton rally due to work commitments. I could have joined the lone protester and maybe made a bit of a splash. At least the original plans got waylaid: the Pipefitters Union changed their mind and wouldn't let Paul speak at their hall. (ha! couldn't find a link to the change though)

Kim over at WestMustSeparate has a brief rundown of the Conservative majority mumblings going on. The ending tag line, "if Paul Martin got elected I'd have to separate" nails it on the head exactly why I wanted a Martin victory. This mindset would sweep the west if Ontario again voted for the crooked bastards.

Queen's University professor David Skillicorn has analyzed the speeches of the 3 main party leaders and found Paul Martin "spun" twice as often as Stephen Harper, with Layton in the middle. Skillicorn ran speeches through a program that "claims to root ot patterns of straying from the truth in speaking". The spin rundown can be found here. "Average spin per speech"? Liberals-124, NDP-88, Conservatives-73. (Too bad there wasn't still a Reform Party... do them and the Bloc and it would look a lot like a map of the House of Commons!)

Jack Layton is predicting an NDP win in Edmonton Strathcona. Dear God, lets hope he's wrong. That's my riding, for Pete's sake. (He said it at Bonnie Doon Community Hall too, which I could hit with a baseball from home. Stupid work).

Jaffer confirms that concern in today's Riding Profile of Strathcona in the Journal. Shit.

Jack Layton now sounds like a despondant dope peddlar trying to push some crack cocaine on easily impressionable teenagers.

If voters were teenaged girls, and votes were sex, and the NDP lived in the US, they would be needing to check this site for legal culpability. I mean seriously, is this not the most eerie thing you've ever heard?

- Ohhh, that was some good comedy, I re-read it and am still recovering. "This is bullshit, don't believe it or I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU, AND YES THIS IS A WRITTEN THREAT! And that's what Oedipus told his father."

- On some non-comedy stuff, /. is reporting that Major League Baseball is still trying to screw over fantasy leagues. MLB just doesn't get it: even if the stats are their proprietary data, its in their best interest to have as many people playing fantasy baseball as possible. How do you think I started spending $100/year on MLB.tv packages?

- Another bizzare but fun site: ChavScum.co.uk, a website dedicated to poking fun at Britain's version of the Trailer Park Boys.

- Oh, so I was watching Smallville today (don't ask) and saw Clark and Lana sleep together. To quote Joey from Blossom: "whoa". So naturally its sparking quite the debate on the DC Comics Superman webboard about the appropriateness of a clean-cut hero like Superman becoming an adulterer. (Or in some threads about choosing "bug-faced" Kristin Kreuk instead of the "way-hotter" Allison Mack or the "butch-er" Erica Durance). Some smarmy Euro-trash poster was "bragging" about how sexually open their continent is about underage sexual depravity, when a clever Yankee blew them out of the water with this quote: " If people in Europe have so much sex how come its dying out (in terms of population). They must be doing it wrong." Oh that's clever. More importantly, oddly accurate and counter-intuitive. Other highlight from the board: "Plus, in one episode Lois was showed not to be a virgin. Are you up in arms about that one, as well." Nobody came up with this one, but the obvious answer is "no, we always accepted that Lois was a whore".

- Finally, IMDB searching has driven me bonkers. I was going crazy last week trying to remember where I recognized Bridget Moynahan from (watched her in "I, Robot"). I only watched like 4 movies in the past 2 weeks, so naturally today I had no idea which actress or which movie I was looking for. "Love Actually" was one of the films I saw last week (gack), and it has about 600 A-minus-list actors in it, so naturally I tore my hair out trying to find her in that list (I did find though that Heike Makatsch who played the horny secretary Mia isn't the girl from "Being John Malkovitch" and who's only appearance I would have seen was "Resident Evil", where my love-affair with Milo Jovovich would have kept me from seeing her). Long story short, eventually I did find Bridget when I remembered that there were two movies last week I saw featuring Serenity actors: "I Robot" with Alan Tudyk and "Love Actually" with Chrwe....Chewtle...Mister Ejjaiejf....Crhetlew...um....thedudewhoplayedtheoperativeinserenity. Then it was quick to look Bridget up and discover: I've never seen her before. Well, she was one of the hot bartenders in "Coyote Ugly" and was in "Sum of All Fears" which I've read 6 times and never watched. She was in that stinker of a "Serendipity" which I almost watched because of Kate Beckinsale but didn't, and "Lord of War" which I sorta wanted to see but didn't and therefore...didn't. So I have no idea why I thought I recognized her, especially since she has absolutely nothing in common with the real Dr. Susan Calvin.

2006-01-12

Over on the Shotgun blog, "Bob" the leftist agitator brings us a link of "conservative bias in the RCMP because the Ponoka cops nailed a guy for having an obscene bumper sticker.

As I recall, a F___ Ralph sign in a car in Edmonton was treated with kid-gloves by the cops back in 2001 or 1997 or something. Seems awfully similar to the anti-Harper bumper sticker. Maybe the police had a conservative bias and lost it? Or maybe just that the RCMP don't put up with as much bull as the Edmonton City cops? (It was Ponoka RCMP, though, so "abuse of power" does have an air of reliability.. local rumours have been going around for years that some officers who have been stationed there are taking bribes and selling drugs for local street gangs.)

I post a similar version of the above post to the Standard but leave out the specifics of the rumours that some Ponoka RCMP officers have been involved in selling and protecting the distributers of illicit drugs simply because enough people read the Shotgun that somebody is going to try libel (even though its acknowledged as a rumour with no proof, and no names or dates are given).

Update: I won't ret-con it out of existence like I have with a few other of my minor gaffes, but the Layton speech is from December. At least I didn't miss a SECOND chance to heckle the lunatic during this campaign. Oddly enough, I've already addressed this speech on another blog.

That fascist nincompoop Jack Layton seems to have been almost a non-factor. This can't help but be good news. Anything that puts the NDP nearer to the 0.008% of the popular vote they deserve in any country that believes itself educated and civilized is a good thing.

Speaking of which, time for my surprising revelation: I'm scared that Harper might win. There, I've said it. I'd prefer the Liberals to win again. Why? Well, because a Conservative minority would be no different really from a Liberal one: the NDP still call the shots, you simply get less corruption. That's no good. Also because it validates the whole United Alternative bullshit, aiming to replace the Liberals with the same Red Tories we chased out with Reform in 1993. Finally, because a Liberal win means Alberta Independence shoots up to 65% in the polls overnight, while Harper winning would make people believe that "we can work within the system" which it may appear to overnight but will again screw us over in 10-20 years. I want Alberta out, I want it out now, and Harper's temporary electoral success as "Liberal-Lite" gets in the way of that.

While Keith's readers (which include my brother) were all either excited about it or too busy trashing ECW/King of the Hill/The War At Home/Simpsons, I noticed that nobody looked at Amazon.com's hourly-updated top selling items doesn't feature Futurama on the top 25. Family Guy Volume 3 is on there, perhaps re-justifying its return to television.

But Keith's readers and apparently FOX executives never paid close attention to the top of the list. If they had, they would find another FOX-cancelled series selling extremely well on DVD (for a long time, it was #1). Not only that, the movie based on the series is selling currently at #3, one spot ahead of its television sibling. That cancelled series is of course Firefly starring Edmonton native Nathon Fillion. The TV series (which I haven't seen) is therefore at least as popular as Futurama despite having a quarter the number of episodes. The movie (which I own) didn't do particularly well in theatres but is clearly extremely popular on DVD.

So its time for FOX to figure it out: do DVD sales mean a return to broadcast, or will they have to figure out that DVD-TV sales and broadcast airing are likely very different audiences. Curb Your Enthusiasm is very popular on DVD, for example, and less so on cable in the US. South Park's ratings have fallen considerably on television, but the DVDs are cult favourites (despite Parker and Stone refusing to talk for more than 3 minutes on any episode commentary: what's with that??).

I understand one thing likely keeping Firefly off of TV screens in the future: studio rivalry. Universal's press release of Serenity's release ignores the existence of a TV series entirely, and while FOX could theoretically do the same, it would be hard to leave out the results of the film, meaning apprehension about promoting a Universal theatrical release. No other network (including Sci-Fi Channel) would have much luck airing the series -- Buffy's final two seasons likely taught Whedon what you're forced to do when your new network doesn't want to promote the old network.

Its a shame, really, I suppose. Of course, I can hardly say: never even watched Firefly yet.

Second off, I got an eBay phishing email today. It was totally different than any other eBay item I've ever seen, but I don't have the computing resources right now to deliver a screenshot. It's a email sent via myMessages feature, ironically brought it to cut down on eBay eschrow fraud. The "message" is: Hello,I am emailing you about the Item I won , I sent you the money and never received the package , It has been 4 days now and you said that it will get in max 2 days. Please explain, I am getting worried !

Jvsfl

Now it starts off with "eBay sent this message.Your registered name is included to show this message originated from eBay." which apparently the real messages contain. Problem is, this didn't include my registered name (but how many people would check that). The email instructs that "eBay sent this message on behalf of an eBay member via My Messages. Responses sent using email will not reach the eBay member. Use the Respond Now button below to respond to this message." But the "Respond Now" button links you to this scam site (THIS IS NOT AN EBAY SITE! DON'T BE STUPID AND TYPE YOUR INFO IN THERE). From there, I just have to put in my eBay details and they can hack my account.

Of course, this assumes that the email they sent it to was my ebay address (it wasn't). And like I said, it didn't include my registered name, which was a problem inasmuch as I don't know my registered name. I have an eBay and PayPal account, but I forget the information I gave them, which email address I used (it may have been an expired email addy and therefore of little use to me to know it), my registered name, my password, etc. etc. etc.

If only they WOULD use my real eBay address and registered name in a phishing email, then I could easily go back to using eBay and PayPal again (and attain my dual dreams of selling a Britney Spears 8-Track and purchasing Puddy's Magic 8-Ball Jacket).

Naturally, there is literally zero side-benefit to any more scams perpetrated by the Liberal Party. That should be their slogan: The Liberal Party of Canada: Less socially responsible than Russian internet scams

With a couple notable exceptions (Pirates and Vacation were good, Wizard and Shawshank are classics even thought I personally didn't like it them, and House is very entertaining) you'd be hard pressed to find a WORSE list of trendy TV shows and movies. Only one film before 1988 and no TV show that's been off the air longer than three years.

So where did I find this listing of bad shows and movies? People Magazine? A bandwagon-jumping teenage girl? You're getting closer: the favourite TV shows and movies of The Edmonton Rush's "Crush" dance squad. Please tell me none of these poor excuses for human beings will be permitted to vote on January 23rd. The list is worse than it appears: the Will Ferrel and OC votes appeared multiple times.

I mention this mainly because Saturday the 7th at Dante's on the West End one could see some of these girls: the Crush Team was at the bar. Did I dance with one? Did I get one of the girls' numbers? Did I kiss one? Did I stuff one up the bunghole? Of course not. Incredibly, the girls' private party area high above the dance floor was guarded by no less than a uniformed Edmonton Police Services officer! Is this a sensible use of taxpayer dollars? I mean seriously: if these girls are so endangered in the public eye, maybe the Rush should keep them encased in carbonite in between games, just for their protection.

The Crush photogallery is fairly sparse and annoyingly flash-protected (no right-clicking to save to the computer, no linking to individual pics in my blog a la yesterday's Jessica Alba bikini pictures) but the "tryouts" pictures are pretty nice.

After a brief and fiery meeting in the General Manager's office that didn't involve me saying much of anything, I was left with an ultimatum that the next time I say something that offends anybody (even if they overhear me telling somebody else) then I will be looking for new work. Since I think anybody who's read more than 3 words on this blog realizes how impossible that might be, I have taken it upon myself to start looking for new work. Anybody who knows somebody interested in hiring a B.Sc. Physics holder anywhere on the planet, feel free to leave a comment in this posting.

Its not that I like my job, or that I'm really getting paid much, but I would like to leave it on my own terms rather than get fired and have years of work basically banished from my resume. More details as they become presented.

Small Dead Animals gives us her take on another Liberal scandal. The best response I can make to this is courtesy of Dwayne Johnson: IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MANY SCANDALS THE LIBERALS HAVE. Ontarians vote for them anyways! [its why we hates them, my precious; ed]

Conservative MP Peter Goldring is in hot water for comments that piss off people regarding his hope that the hookers on 118th Ave can be moved elsewhere. Naturally the article has to include this phrase: "But NDP candidate Arlene Chapman said the problem has its roots in poverty." There are two comments to make on this: one is that the problem's "roots in poverty" isn't all that pronounced. I'm not saying we're dealing with high class whores here, but let's be honest, its not the poor people in the 118th Ave area who are getting these hookers. Its people from the richer parts of the city who drive in. The prostitutes are around the poor areas because they either are poor (well, they're all poor, even the high-class ones, but I'm saying their own poverty is why they work near the home) or because the rich areas where their clientele are from also include way too many bluebloods looking to call the police and/or the city and deal with the problem. Chapman is the former head of a battered women advocacy group, so she's probably just spewing her own biased nonsense here. A radical feminist like her isn't too keen on blaming the problem on anybody but some anonymous men out there. The best part in my mind about the story is the identity of the NDP candidate: its not Janina Strudwick, perpetual defeatist candidate.

Billy Crystal checks into his hotels as "Donald Rumsfeld". This amusing and secret anecdote was only slightly spoiled by the fact that on CarpetMunching DeGeneres's show today Crystal himself told the story, but mentioned he uses a different fake name in each hotel, and that only in Toronto did he use Rumsfeld (likely assuming less people would really catch on -- he'd have been better off using Deputy PM Anne McLellan's name -- likely nobody in Toronto knows who SHE is).

Eugene Plawiuk is being slightly insane again this week talking about the NDP winning Edmonton-Strathcona from popular incumbant (and former drinking companion of yours truely) Rahim Jaffer. While Eugene's own claims are as funny as anything this socialist wackjob could ever come up with (Rahim a clown? Unproductive for the riding? Do people really get upset when opposition MPs can't secure their constituencies with Canoe Museums?) the biggest laugh is the note that dangerous ideologue and endorser of world dictators, Dr. Evil himself happens to be the MLA in the provincial riding of the same name, and this should bear some note. The problem is that Euguene/Raj's little band of subsidized leeches that make up most of the UofA's Arts Faculty and most of the NDP's delusioned voting base aren't a large enough proportion of people in the federal Strathcona riding to prop the NDP up by such a margin. The ridings may be the same name, and both include the trend-following hippies of Whyte Avenue, but that's where the similarity ends. Rahim will cake-walk through this riding like Svend Robinson's flaccid old-man penis through the rectum of underage Cuban boys.Courtesy of Fark.com:- Jessica Alba in a bikini. If this doesn't convert those Brokeback Mountain queers, I dunno what will.- Lawyers are fighting tooth and nail to avoid having to be barred (disbarred??) from having sex with clients. "We are not scum. Really" an advocate may have said.- Chicago is the fattest city in the U.S. with Baltimore as the fittest. Well, by "fittest" they might mean Honolulu or San Fransisco instead. They all agree Chicago is the land of fat asses though.- Cold Beer sales might be banned. This is really a dumb idea. Of course, all liquor laws are dumb ideas at the heart of it. Is the "magical fire-water" really so hard to deal with? I mean, c'mon! I'm drinking right now! Look for a long future rant from me on this topic later. From the article: "Last year, a fourth-grade class from Kansas City submitted a proposal to make the American bullfrog the state amphibian. It passed in the final moments of the 2005 legislative session.

Alter said the jump from naming state animals to restricting how alcohol can be purchased didn't really surprise him.

"You never know what's on the mind of young kids - some of them are pretty smart," he said.Of course, sometimes they have really dumb ideas too. I mean, maybe next year we should agree to fly F-18 escorts for Santa Claus, rather than just claim we do. Kids like that idea too. Of course, the real dumb ideas come from adults like this Alter moron: listening to the legislative desires of pre-teens.- I really hate this guy

Sure I received moderately worse personal news today than the personal news discussed in the previous post, plus continued fallout from the events of the previous post, but I got two comments on that last entry!

2006-01-04

On New Years Eve 2004/2005 I went to M_____'s party, and had what could best be described as a surreal time. Parts of it seemed like a fairy tale, others like I was in The Langoliers or Neco z Alenky or something: just nothing seemed quite normal. She and I had enjoyed our first-ever makeout session after what felt like the world's longest courtship, and then suddenly I was a leper. The party ended on a sour note that would have appeared to be my fault, but really wasn't. At this point I'd rather not say, but suffice it to be told that my phone calls weren't returned with a single unpleasant exception.

She had shown up at my work though, where she herself used to be employed. She ended up being known in the third person's variety of the perpendicular pronoun: in particular: "she" or "her". In that time she's continued the longstanding trend of not communicating anything particularly effectively with me. Despite that, I felt on New Years Even 2005/2006 it was time that I played a little hardball and called back with a somewhat aggressive stance (less so than planned: I deviated from my script at runtime).

The return call came Tuesday evening. I let the voicemail pick it up, and didn't listen myself until a bad work meeting left me in a foul mood and I decided even M_____ couldn't make it any worse. The message itself was vaguely upbeat, even though our relationship before was degraded to "hanging out" [her nipple was hanging out, if that counts; ed] and it seems that she was with me behind the back of a guy that I heretofore knew nothing of (unless it was one of her previous suitors whom I'd never met) but still nothing that impacted the outright hostility to which I was met with throughout the 2005 Year of Silence.

Later on Tuesday evening when replaying the message to one of my few co-workers who remembers her, another coworker responsible for my bad meeting tried to talk to me about it, which I handled with my typical aplomb: I ignored her. This led to her asking why I "hate chicks" to which I did not feel like giving the obvious response (which would likely lead to another unpleasant meeting) referring instead to the voicemail as "Exhibit A".

Another possible answer I considered, which was rejected for being too honest and therefore too confrontational, is that if women don't understand what makes men hate them then they should accompany us to the bar. It will all become clear then. I'll likely have a more extended rant on this subject: probably after our next trip to the bar.

Suffice it to say, I'm currently dealing with post-M_______ trauma. This might keep me off the blogging for a couple of days.

Today's CityPlus section of the Edmonton Journal had a couple big front page stories (I don't count Paula Simmmons ramblings as a big story, even though it is a half-assed pro-Conservative article from her -- the biggest sign yet that a possible Conservative government is a bad idea) that are somewhat interconnected. Rely on me, oh faithful readers, to spot this connections nobody else catches. Last time it was the curious correlation between handguns and daycares, and now its that you're more likely to be murdered near the LRT.

Say what? Well, first let me backtrack: the bottom story is about the new Health Sciences LRT station (why Edmonton Transit can't call it the "University Hospital" station is beyond me -- heaven forbid a tourist should know that's where the LRT-linked hospital is). I rode the new "lert" line on Monday when it was free, and let me tell you: $109 million dollars just got thrown away. Its a freaking 40 second journey from University station to Health Sciences station, or as the Journal described it: "several hundred metres" away. So anything over 200 is "several hundred metres?" This is another repeat of the downtown LRT fiasco: there are three stations (Corona, Bay, Central) that are so close to each other you can make out individual people at the stop further down from the one you are standing at. Add in two more stations (Grandin and Churchill) that are almost as close, and only invisible because of a curve in the track. They do this, and then wonder why we're so freaking obese??? Now all they have to do is build it farther south, and... what's this.. there's a building in the way (its located behind the trees in this picture and literally only a hundred metres or so from the edge of the track)! Ahh, Edmonton's LRT planning is complete: "lets build it from downtown to the far northeast edge of town where nothing is, just because that's where the rail lines already are running" - "lets build it only on the north side of the river" - "lets build a southside station at the UofA, but bury it four stories underground" - "whyte avenue? west edmonton mall? mill woods? nah, lets extend it to a mall that doesn't exist anymore" - "there, now the train is above ground, lets aim it at a historic building".

So anyways, onto the next rant: the murder rate. In 2005, Edmonton had 37 homicides which is pretty crazy no matter which way you spin it. (I half-seriously considered putting a "venting" to the Journal asking anybody in late-December 2005 who was planning on murdering somebody in 2006 to kindly do it in December since we had a record murder rate anyways, and to start 2006 on a clean slate with the pressure on potential murders reduced). This year they didn't do a "gang breakdown" like last year (or 2003 or something), where the gang members who were killed were on one half of the page, and people who actually may qualify as innocent victims were on the other half...making it perfectly clear that the murder rate wasn't really that bad when you considered that half the "victims" deserved to die. This year they did, however, give us a really neat map showing where all the victims were killed. I don't have a scanner here and can't find an online copy, so I might ret-con one into this posting later. Suffice it to say, there was one overriding thing of note: victims were quite often near the LRT. Here's the rundown:

2nd murder of the year, January 15th at the Globe Bar and Grill practically on top of Corona station

3rd murder of the year, January 23rd at 34th St. and 144th Ave just northeast of Claireview station

6th murder of the year, February 25th at 45th St. and 137th Ave. right on top of Claireview station

9th murder of the year, April 22nd at 102nd Ave and 111th St. just northwest of Corona station

12th murder of the year, May 2 at 93rd St. and 107A Ave. right on top of the LRT line between Churchill and Stadium stations

13th murder of the year, May 4th at 129th Ave and 56th St. only 3 blocks from Belvedere station

15th murder of the year, May 18th at 63rd St. and 140th Ave on the other side of Claireview from the 6th murder

16 murder of the year, June 5th at 106 Ave and 101 St. north of Central station

23rd murder of the year, August 7th at 82nd St. and 120th Ave a stone's throw from Coliseum station

25th murder of the year, September 10th at Edmonton Remand Centre at 9660 104 Avenue right on top of the LRT line where it pops up by Churchill

26th murder of the year, September 12th at 127th Ave and 78th St. on the other side of Belvedere from the 13th murder

27th murder of the year, September 14th - he died as a result of injuries sustained in a beating at 105th Ave. and 94th St. at about the same location as the 25th murder only the other side of the LRT line

28th murder of the year, September 20th at 85th St. and 114th Ave. just north of Stadium station

29th murder of the year, September 23rd at Jasper Ave. and 96th St. just east of Central station and just south of Churchill

This list doesn't include 2 other murders near the 3rd murder: the 10th and 7th were up by Victoria Trail and far enough away from the LRT to be ignored. The list also fails to note another hot spot: the 5th murder of the year happened at Orlando's 2 Pub and Grill, while the 31st murder of the year was an 18 year old girl killed when walking home from her birthday at Orlando's 2. Orlandos first location seems to have escaped the curse: the nearest murder was at 111th ave and 153rd street some 12-13 blocks away.

So what can we learn from this? Living near the LRT is murder: most of the near-LRT victims were attacked at or near their homes. Also, summer is a bad time to live between Central and Belvedere stations: from May 2nd to September 23rd 9 of Edmonton's 37 murders occured in that region. As comparison, Mill Hoods only had 6 murders throughout the year, 4 of them between Whitemud and 34th Ave and between 17th and 50th Street. (Ellerslie-23rd and 34th-50th was the rectangle with the remaining 2). The two Orlandos victims were part of the other big regional clump: 5 murders between 134th and 167th Ave from Castledowns Road to 127th Street, with a 6th murder at Yellowhead and 128th Ave.

And now the LRT is expanding south? Dear Lord, the murder rate is only going to get worse!

The Telegraph article on the topic quotes a rancher saying "I just don't think our way of life is conducive to them." (the "our" is ranchers, the "them" is sodomites)

The Telegraph has to bring up the faggot rodeo, although apparently our home-grown group has more sodomite activists than sodomite cowboys, lending credence to the lifestyle-choice option that sodomites are desperate to ditch lest we remember that they choose to be sick perverts. Of course, that there are few if any actual sodomite cowboys reminds us that sodomites may not recall making the choice to be sodomites (I likewise don't recall my choice to think tomatoes taste awful, but i wouldn't claim i was born a tomato-hater), but they do indeed make that choice somewhere down the line, and that those choices are somehow interrelated.

Inexplicably woke up this morning and made my choice between playing X-Men Legends II and watching the CBC cover Jack Layton's speech to kick of the latter half of the 2005/2006 campaign. Strangely enough, the latter option won out, even though I hate Jack Layton, detesting him for his constant race-baiting and class-baiting. It was the usual Jack Layton speech, though he tried to be less creepy: obvious result, it was his creepiest speech ever.

Jack was name-dropping like it was nobody's business. He mentioned some woman in Dartmouth whom he'd talked to (first and last -- question of the day: Mr. Layton, do you not believe in the concept of protecting sensitive personal information) and then named her daughter like it was some sort of memory test being conducted, using them as a chance to blast the lack of daycare options. Next he name-drops somebody from his "hometown of Toronto". Not meaning to get side-tracked here, but when did Torontonians stop considering themselves the The Centre of the Universe and start thinking of themselves as a little berg they were reared in? The rapid switch is confusing.

Anyways, this Toronto chick got namedropped for the shame of her having to leave her job to care for her "93-year-old father". Shame? Shame??? Isn't Jack the leader of the psychotic anti-capitalist party? Isn't a person leaving the shackles of corporate tyranny for the namby-pamby world of caring for elderly loved ones something the NDP would be in favour of?

No, apparently not: they'd much rather you stay at your job and pay them to look after your children (or grandparents) instead. Both the daycare and the healthcare arguments sure do end up sounding like the NDP isn't too interested in the old or the young getting the best care, but would much rather the NDP appear to be interested in the old and the young getting care.

This name-dropping was more than a little ridiculous though: its like Jack is trying to prove that he's been out there talking to people. But who its clear Jack hasn't been talking to is Constitutional experts, the kind of people who might let him know that DAYCARE AND HEALTHCARE IS NOT A FEDERAL RESPONSIBILITY! I would kill for somebody to ask him why he can turn around and piss on the Constitution, the highest law in the land, after he just finished getting all worried about the violation of the Charter, which is perhaps the Constitution's least-important section.

Yes, Jack, healthcare is a mess across the country, but here's a news flash: it isn't the fault of the federal government. Well, the federal government's universal care bullshit can be given some of the blame, but its merely the provinces for buying into socialized healthcare that's ruining it. Shortage of cash? That doesn't seem to be helping in Alberta or seriously hurting Nova Scotia. It's the system, dumbass, and as long as Jack's leftist notion of government is the moral validation for the system it will never get better.